


Play Ball

by kihadu



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:52:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2695421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kihadu/pseuds/kihadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Kirkwall Gang hanging out in that courtyard outside Gamlen's house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play Ball

Really they’re little more than a group of kids wanting to change the world. Kids for their naivety, their blithe manner of swinging through the streets as though nothing can touch them. Hawke carries a stick on her back half the length of her body and sneers at any templar wanting to question the crackle that runs down the wood.

“This, ser?” she’ll ask. Her fingers will run over the staff. It’s shorter than most, the wood gone red from blood. There’s a blade at the end, and where the metal attaches there’s stains she can never quite get out. “You think this is a staff?”

The thing is, Varric will muse later, she won’t even bother trying to talk her way out of it.

“Sure,” she'll say. “I’m a mage. Wanna go?”

They, the Kirkwall Gang, become adept at finding new places to hide dead bodies, and are familiar faces near the hawkers willing to take templar-branded metal.

It’s a warm day, too warm to be doing anything in particular but not so warm that they’ve abandoned sense and gone to hunt wyverns in the waves. The little courtyard outside Gamlen’s is used to them by now, bricks over there cracked from Carver and Fenris roughhousing, a pile of crates arranged just so, giving Merrill and Varric a place to sit away from the others. If they gave it half a moment’s thought they’d figure that the people living around about would perhaps want use of the courtyard, but they don’t. They own this place. The city doesn’t know it yet, but the streets are starting to learn.

Aveline is standing up the stairs with Hawke’s mother - Mrs Hawke, the others call her, forgetting that Hawke is the surname and so the title is proper.

There’s no templars that will come near here, not these days. Aveline’s done what she can there, and Varric does the rest. Kids wanting to change the world is one thing, but these ones are all grown up and only getting more powerful as the days draw on.

Merrill is playing electricity over her hand, arms bare all the way up and pale shoulders burning in the sun. Fenris has given up on any kind of propriety and is lying in the dirt beside the dog, shirt off and pants swapped for a skirt that falls open over his thighs. The others cannot be bothered teasing him about this. He pats the dog’s ear idly, the dog forgetting he is there and twitching as though there is a fly.

Wanting to spar, Carver glowers down at him for a minute. “It’s not that hot.”

“Yes, it is,” retorts Fenris.

Fenris dreams of a world without slaves, the same world that Anders and Merrill and Isabela imagine, but each in their own way. Anders is open-mouthed with his views but shares less on the hows. Isabela freely talks of taking to the seas and destroying slavers from there. Remembering the sea only a little and poorly, Fenris isn’t certain if her method is better than what he could design. He is better with a sword, after all, and cannot imagine a ship will give him the space to swing it.

Carver kicks his leg, in case Fenris is unaware of the shadow looming over him. “You come from Tevinter. Isn’t it, like, always hot there?”

“Yes. I didn’t enjoy it.” He wonders if he could slip into the Fade, if it would be cooler there. There is sweat on his upper lip and he licks it off, unconsciously glancing sideways at Hawke as he does so.

Hawke is playing ball.

Before Fenris came to the city someone set a hoop up high, and ever since Hawke has spent too much coin getting bladders and other various innards turned into balls. They do not bounce. The game is a mix of toss and dodge, points scored randomly or not at all, and magic always allowed. She is playing against Isabela, who is so spry that Hawke’s magic does not have her at a disadvantage, and Sebastian, who is so tall that, again, it does not matter.

“Stop bugging him. Come play,” Hawke says, hurling the ball at her brother with a breath of magicked wind behind so that he catches it with an ‘oof’. There are never teams, though impermanent alliances can be struck mid-game.

“I want a drink,” Fenris announces to the sky.

“Mum made tea,” says Hawke, a rebel mage not afraid to admit she kisses her mother on the cheek before going out to do justice to her cause.

“Something cold.”

“We've got mages. We can ice it.” There is a scuffle with the ball that interrupts all other conversation, and Fenris is obliged to roll sideways through the dirt away from their feet. The dog huffs at the movement and drags herself away into the shade, where she settles down to glare at them all.

“Oh! I might be able to do some!” Merrill cries, while Fenris rearranges his skirt and tries to re-find the comfortable sprawl he’d held before.

“You can’t,” Hawke says, not looking away from her stand-off with Sebastian, who has the ball, and Isabela, who is trying to steal the ball without letting the other two players take it. “You tried, remember-” and she breaks off to leap, staff in one hand and the other outstretched to try to steal the ball. Sebastian makes a desperate attempt to score a goal, only to have the ball taken mid-air by Carver. He grins at them, ferocious and doggy, before easily dunking it in.

“Merrill can keep her magic away from my drinks.”

“What?” retorts Varric. He’s reading, as he so often is, but not a novel, of which Fenris has never seen him hold. “Is she going to bleed in it?”

“I’m no blood mage, so I could not say how they prepare tea,” Fenris snarks back. Varric laughs, and goes back to his reading. Unlike Anders, Varric allows Fenris his distrust. Anders can never decide between condemning Merrill for the very thing that gives proper cause to fearing mages and condemning Fenris for fearing mages at all. Today, he is busy making potions with Bethany’s assistance and does not lift his head to join in.

“Think Corff has ice?” Sebastian asks, while Isabela and Carver struggle together for the ball.

Bethany lifts her head and smiles at him. She always smiles at him. It is unnerving, but then, she smiles at everyone. “I have ice.” 

“I reckon we have wine,” Carver says, relinquishing the ball the Isabela. He wipes his sweaty hands on his pants and saunters back over to Fenris. “If my sister provides the ice, perhaps that will do. If, of course, that idea will suit your highness.” Fenris glares up at him, but lets himself be pulled to his feet.

“I was trying to learn ice,” Merrill says.

“But why?” Isabela asks, while Sebastian runs to catch up with the ball that is heading out of the courtyard. “You’re so good at electricity. First time I saw you I thought you’d be simple as a kitten. But I reckon you’re more than Hawke, even.”

Hawke, busy with her fringe, doesn’t hear the words for a moment. When she does she jerks her head up. “Liar! Merrill’s good, for sure, but can she do this?” and she lets out a flash of light that is absolutely unspectacular in the daylight.

“Now, now,” says Varric. “You’re both wonderful mages. Far better than I.”

Merrill and Hawke look at each other each a moment before turning on Varric with playful, harmless magic ready on their fingertips.

Aveline interrupts their impromptu war by coming down the stairs carrying glasses for Fenris and Carver. They set it all down on one of the crates usually appropriated as a table and allow Bethany to do the honours of cooling the wine down before passing it out.

“We got a plan for tonight?” asks Carver, eager as ever to be doing something, even if he never knows what that something should be. One night it’s stealing purses and another it’s cutting throats. It’s all the same to him, but he wishes that between now and finding a purpose he didn’t have to follow his sister like a lost dog.

“There’s been some issues down by the docks,” says Varric. “Thought you and Broody could go check it out.”

“Hey!” says Hawke. She’s downed her wine all in one go and holds her glass out to her sister for another. “What about me?”

“Oh, you too. I need to take Bianca for a spin. Oiled her up all new, and I gotta see if she’s fixed. She’s got a weird catch happening when I draw back.”

“Is it causing you problems?” asks Sebastian, leaning forward.

“Not too much, though I don’t know what you could do to help Bianca.” He waves a hand. “Don’t look so hurt. You know she’s one of a kind.”

“The rest of us are meant to stay here?” asks Isabela. “That’s no fun.”

“You could attempt a real job and join the guard,” Aveline snipes.

Isabela rolls her eyes. “I’m not sure you even know the meaning of the word fun.”

“I’ll wager I know an awful lot of things you don’t.” Aveline affects a haughty sniff, but they’re good friends, the two of them, for all they pretend they’re not.

“That’s tonight, yeah?” Hawke asks.

“Late,” Varric confirms.

“Plenty of time for now." There’s a wicked grin on her lips.

“Don’t call if you get arrested,” Leandra says. “Aveline and I are going to see Natalie.” She crosses the courtyard and bends to accept a kiss from each of her children. Only Bethany looks awkward about it. “I won’t be back until late, so I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bye, Mum.”

“Bye, Mrs Hawke,” the others chime. “And Aveline,” they hasten to add when the woman gives them a stern look for being ignored.

“There’s a whole seven hours until sunset,” says Merrill. She’s eager as always to do whatever is going to be done, even if she doesn’t always join in. She’s got her own ways, but they’re a weird collection of people, their own agendas, their own dreams.

Spread over crates and dirt, sweat sliding into mud down their skin, they lean unconsciously towards Hawke. They’ll follow her into fire, and scarcely wait so long as to ask why.


End file.
